“I ran back in time because Zoom and my dad and things and I got to live with my parents and it was all good but then it wasn’t so I came back but everything is different and I want everything to change back.” – Barry Allen during this week’s panicked voiceover
Barry flips his shit so hard that he flips it all the way to Star City. All over Felicity. Who, like us, is like, “You just, like, run back in time? All the time?”
In the penultimate episode of the season, Barry can’t stop the feeling that he’s invincible since the Speed Force told him that it loved him and read him a Night-Night book about a dinosaur. He’s got that sunshine pocket. Got that good soul in his feet.
Even #Metapocalypse 2016 won’t throw off his game. The metahuman army that rallied together when Zoom outed the “disappearance” of the Flash on broadcast TV. Barry swoops in — a little too late, in my opinion — to bail out the Central City Police because EVERYTHING IS LITERALLY ON FIRE. And did I spy Earth-2 Hawkpeople?
Continue reading “NOC Recaps The Flash: Running on Sunshine”
“The Runaway Dinosaur” is a children’s book that our Flash’s mom used to read to him when he was younger about a lost dinosaur. Our Barry-saur is also lost, but in a place we’ve only been in passing: in the Speed Force. I think. What kind of noun is the Speed Force, anyways? Only Kevin Smith, the director of this episode, knows.
“My name is Barry Allen and I am the fas– nope, not yet.”
Now I know that there is a certain amount of suspended disbelief when it comes to this show, and this is one of those times when I can’t help but yell, “REALLY?” at my TV. In the absence of The Flash, Team Flash is using a hologram to trick the city and the city’s criminals into believing that Central City is still under Barry’s speedy protection. In reality, Cisco is using his Warcraft skills to control the projection as Barry runs around in a Tron suit. Iris is being as helpful as she can, but it’s just too damn ridiculous.
Continue reading “NOC Recaps The Flash: Hoodlums and Holograms”
My name is Barry Allen, and I am the saddest man alive. The title of the episode is “Back to Normal,” but this is not the normal Barry Allen that we met on Arrow years ago. He hates buses and putting on clothes and when his coffee cup breaks, he looks like he’s going to burst into tears.
Continue reading “NOC Recaps The Flash: Powerless and Pouty”
One of the best things about Barry Allen is how he recognizes and appreciates his support system. From the beginning, he’s been a team player: willing to ask for help, seek guidance, and collaborate. It’s one of his greatest strengths, which probably stems from the roots of the home he was raised in with Joe and Iris West. Barry knows that their support is what shaped him into the man he has become despite the tremendous, life-defining tragedy that struck him — like lightning — as a ten-year old.
Did anyone notice the new voice over intro now includes King Shark, Trajectory, and Jay as Zoom? I love these show runners; you can tell how geeky they get over their jobs. Each week it gets harder for me to come up with increasingly more clever titles than the actual show episode name. “Flash Back,” c’mon! How could I beat that?
Team Flash is dealing with their Post-Traumatic Zoom Disorder in a healthy way. Motivated by avenging Jay’s death and defeating Zoom, they take a team field trip to a cliffside-waterfall–river-canyon to test out Barry’s ability to run at escape velocity. It’s a lot like the first “test runs” with the Core Four pre-supersuit, but there’s a level of familiarity and kinship that can only happen after dealing with all of the bullshit that Barry, Cisco, Caitlin, and Wells, have been through together.
Just when you thought it was safe to go back to Earth-1… King Shark returns. Also, I learned that there’s no such thing as a “filler episode” for The Flash. I’ll admit that I was wrong and incorrectly assumed that bringing back King Shark after the heavy Earth-2 plotline was a gimmick, but this episode (aka Jaws 2) really sunk its teeth into developing character growth of the members of Team Flash.
Continue reading “NOC Recaps The Flash: (King) Shark Attack”
All the Barry Allens. All the Iris Wests. All the Caitlin Snows. All the Jay Garricks?
I’d laugh that Zoom is doing the CW voiceover for this episode if he weren’t, um you know, scary as hell. Zoom takes Banksy-ing a city to a whole other level:
Continue reading “NOC Recaps The Flash: Earth-2, Frozen Boogaloo”
Earth Freaking Two.
ConStar here standing in for Christelle, but neither of us are running fast enough…! WHO STOLE OUR SPEED?
I realize I’m getting my milk/speed force analogies mixed up for the 2% pun, but let me live. I only just learned that whole milk is only 3.5% milk anyway.
Episode 2×12 of The Flash, “Fast Lane,” features two characters slowing down: Barry and Wally. Both of their speed problems converge upon Iris, is this a sign of things to come for poor Iris West? There’s a monster of the week, but it’s not all that interesting, so we’ll be zipping by mentions of it.
Continue reading “NOC Recaps The Flash: From Whole Speed Force to 2%”
Like the return of Harrison Wells earlier in the season, the latest episode of The Flash found an interesting way bring back last season’s main baddie: The Reverse Flash! Unlike Wells-2, this isn’t an alternative universe version of Eobard Thawne. Instead, the Thawne we meet in “The Reverse Flash Returns” is actually one from a timeline different from last season’s Reverse-Wells. Yeah, it’s kind of confusing.
Continue reading “NOC Recaps The Flash: Origin Story in Reverse”
“Potential Energy,” the title of 2016’s first episode, is pure nerd genius. This episode explores the coulda-shoulda- woulda potential of fresh relationships between our favorite characters and some of the show’s newcomers: Barry + Patty Spivot, Joe + Wally West, and Caitlin + Jay Garrick. By the shock-factor end tag (don’t miss it!), one pairing aggressively commits to eachother, one pairing takes the first tentative steps towards building a stronger connection, and one pairing dissolves in a pile of angst. Keep reading to figure out the fate of each duo.
Continue reading “NOC Recaps The Flash: DTR (Define-The-Relationship)”
The CW pulled out the big guns for The Flash’s second mid-season finale: Mark Hamill’s return as the Trickster, Captain Cold, and… Wally West? Yes. Wally Freaking Kid Flash West is in this episode, and he’s beautiful. I mean, it’s beautiful. Yeah. That’s what I meant. Anyways, happy holidays and speed onward to read onward!
Other title options: Ready to Hawk and Roll, Hawked and Loaded, Hawk of Ages, We Will Hawk You, Too Hawk Hawk Damn, and Drop It like It’s Hawk1.
Before we begin… does Hawkgirl “claim” to be white? Uh oh, this is hawkward… but it wouldn’t be too surprising. (See Sandra Hawke, Sin, and Ra’s Al Ghul). I personally went through Kendra Saunders’ twitter history to read her tweets and reactions and responses to identifying as white. I urge others to do the same and form an opinion after seeing both sides.
Continue reading “NOC Recaps The Flash: It’s Getting Hawk in Here”
It’s the return of Grodd! But we’re mainly dealing with the aftermath of Zoom. Not all of the destruction was physical; Barry’s spine has basically healed but the shame of losing has not yet scarred over. Well, hopefully he “gets back on his feet” soon because superhero legends need him! Let’s just think of Grodd as the big bad boss of this video game level.
I almost didn’t change the title “Gorilla Warfare,” the original was just too good.
The Flash has reached near terminal velocity in my eyes with this episode featuring The Flash family at it’s craziest and the welcoming of Linda Park to the team. We all knew Linda had to get into the Secret Speedster Society at some point, considering she is the future Mrs. Wally West, but I did not expect it to be so freaking fun.
Linda Park is… a ball of light.
Welcome to the reboot of Harrison Wells! The general consensus is that we (the audience and Team Flash “we”) are predisposed to dislike anyone with Harrison Wells’ handsome face. I mean, each character has their reasons for not trusting the man, and most of them involve some sort of — ahem– murder-y business.. I mean, a guy shouldn’t be blamed for an alternate timeline which he was body snatched by an evil, time-traveling speedster, right? So, on paper, everyone should technically be like, “Hey, that wasn’t him. It was just his face! …His good looking, striking face. Let’s give him a chance to be a nice guy.”
But humans (specifically nerds) are fickle, stubborn creatures.
Continue reading “NOC Recaps The Flash: When Harry Met Barry”
Is it just me, or have the early episodes of both Arrow and Flash felt more like prologues for Legends of Tomorrow than independent, standalone series? Perhaps this is the one drawback of such a wide-ranging shared universe. It’s difficult to serve your own story when you must also plant seeds that will bloom in a completely separate show that will happen several months from now. Like I said in last week’s Arrow recap, “The Fury of Firestorm” felt more like a prequel to Legends of Tomorrow than a self-contained Flash story. Still, there were a lot of things to like from the episode that launches Firestorm 2.0.
Continue reading “NOC Recaps The Flash: We Didn’t Start the Firestorm”
I always look forward to an episode featuring Wentworth Miller as Leonard Snart aka Captain Cold. The Flash’s encounters with Cold always end up with the two of them in a romantic-ish telenovela scene — like a lover’s spat in a moonlit forest or one of them saving the other’s life before fleeing town. I mean, I know SnartBarry (or ColdFlash?) isn’t a real “ship”, but the dynamic between the superhandsome superhero and his superhandsome supervillain entertains me even more than WestAllen or Snowbarry. Yeah, I said it.
This official, non-dream season return of Captain Cold was no different; Family of Rogues was a real (frozen) treat. Their relationship is so complicated.
“I opened up our world to new threats, and I am the only one fast enough to stop them.” You sure about that, Barry?
Barry spends the episode denying the existence of another speedster due to some residual other-speedster trust issues, when he should really be wrapping his mind around the existence of another freaking Earth. It’s official: Earth-2 is a thing and pretty much everyone, except Barry, is running with it. C’mon Barry, it’s exciting! Like Cisco, the king Nerd of Color, we’re getting goosies!
Continue reading “NOC Recaps The Flash: Getting Goosies from Earth-Two(sies)”
I bet you didn’t think that our second season would include Barry Allen ditching Team Flash to become a mysterious midnight contractor, Cisco becoming a semi-cop, Harrison Wells making things right, and Iris West actively-in-the-know regarding all things concerning The Flash. Yes, that all happened… or did it? I don’t know who or what to trust anymore after the re-imagined reality that was the episode’s opener.
It’s like one minute you’re in a bear hug (Barry-hug?) with Grant Gustin… but then you pull back to realize you’ve been hugging the sharp bony angles of Ezra Miller instead. NO NO NO. NOT MY FLASH. HE IS NOT MY FLASH. #NotMyFlash
Continue reading “NOC Recaps The Flash: Rebuild It and They Will Come”
